To think there is no more money?

None are appealing. But something has to be done and it should have been done years ago. Now its practically broken.

Back in the day, there was no government being involved in welfare and hospitals and it was entirely driven by philanthropy. Now the state is much bigger. It's not obvious how a rich person would build a hospital or a road nowadays anyway - would they even get planning permission?? (Town and country planning act: piece of legislation that probably has caused a lot of economic damage!)

I visited Mumbai earlier this year and they managed to build an entire tunnel under the Arabian sea to take traffic from downtown to the airport in 20 minutes. It only took 5 years. Singapore built an entirely new underground since I was last there 6 years ago. Could either of those things happen in the UK? No.

What is even funnier is that I asked someone how welfare was funded in Singapore when taxes were low and they said "oh we have a sovereign wealth fund" - so our tax is paying interest on borrowing which goes to fund welfare in another country.

Our political system that is just so class ridden and envious that it doesn't engage with the bigger picture or think long term. The world with sovereign wealth funds must be laughing at us whilst taking our money.

Judging by the CQC debacle, there is plenty of money to be saved in Govt quangoes (think all these ombudsman, EA, numerous regulators) and private sector involvement.

No taxes on taxes for working people

I wonder why they didn’t just say no tax rises at all

I guess we’ll see what they’re pitch rolling for

Maybe it’s the public sector pay issue

What countries are these?

What taxes are Labour planning to raise? because as far as i can tell, nothing has been announced or even hinted at.

Any sources? or is just made up stuff.

On highest tax burden for however many years those additional taxes Labour are planning can add another year and highest amount

Didn't the Labour treasurer famously leave a note saying 'there's no money left' when the Tories won 14 years ago?

They've already gone, to countries that have the same private schools as this country, so their education will be good and the teachers rotate too. Not your bottom end private schools, close to the top. The children are thriving and the families are living a wonderful life too.

@Rummly you're right. It's never the "super rich" Jeff Bezos types that take the hit. A) not enough of them, B) they'll move themselves/assets out the country.

It's those upper/middle class earners who have worked incredibly hard & saved the state a lot of money & who have made sensible decisions, gone without, saved for a rainy day etc who will be expected to shoulder a bigger burden.

• for young people, it kills ambition to see this.

Of course they have & you are, funny how they/you never left after the Tories increased Corp Tax to 25%, froze thresholds and gave us the highest tax burden for 75 years.

Considering the UK is a relatively low taxed economy, where are you all going, that has culture, private schools etc etc

https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2024/a-January-2024/super-rich-unlikely-to-leave-uk-for-boring-and-culturally-barren-tax-havens

I get updates from a few law firms that deal with HNWI - only because I do completely different work for the firms, I don’t do private client, tax or estates work.

They are all absolutely confident that any tax increases on the richest can be avoided if the targets are willing to adjust portfolios and/or domicile.

My guess is that the upper middle income bracket will get hit via thresholds and CGT will again be used as a cash cow.

I have friends in the super rich category, they have been advised to move their money off shore due to a labour government, they have already left the country. We are about to do the same, where is the money going to come from then? High earners already pay a significant larger amount of tax, they shouldn't be robbed for being successful. Go and start your own business, have sleepless nights worrying about how you will pay salaries, going without in the early days of a fledgling business. Worry about whether you might have to make redundancies when there js a down turn in business. Once you've become successful, then see if you feel the same about having to pay more tax. You will have private health insurance, so you certainly won't be needing to wait on the NHS and won't see why you should be paying more. You probably won't be happy for your taxes to go to people sitting at home with their hand out either. Once you see it from the other side, you will feel very differently.

@SundayBloodySunday

"Productivity does need to increase but that will come through investment in infrastructure, house building etc. Good economics , not this failed idea of trickle down.

There seems to be a bizarre concept of the lazy workers not working hard enough and therefore need to be punished into working harder."

Whilst you are right that comparatively low investment levels in the UK compared to say France or Germany has a major impact on UK productivity the low productivity story is much wider than this.

Increasing investment levels needs to come from the private sector as well and not just the state. Tax breaks to encourage companies to invest would help on this.

However even accounting for low investment levels the US is still some 20% more productive than the UK.

De regulation in the early 80s and reduction of union power significantly improved UK productivity at the time. But this was unpopular with workers at the time.

Similarly other countries especially the US operate in a far more competitive corporate environment than the UK which again raises productivity but makes for less job security which again would be unpopular with voters.

Lastly the move towards working from home even now post Covid has and will continue to adversely impact productivity. Any clamp down on this again would be unpopular with voters.

So yes there is definitely more to be done by corporate investment to improve productivity it equally there is more that workers can do as well.

A thing we do know, however, is that the Tories were "contracting" out to private firms for a lot of public things.

If it were me, I'd be reviewing those contracts, looking at the costs of them Vs what needs to go where and reallocating if possible and appropriate. But that takes time to review and put into action.

When I knew what could be reallocated from that, I'd be looking at the allocation of funding to public services, checking on whether that's appropriate or if any reshuffling could be done. And then slotting the money I'd freed up from the Tory backhanders into the budget that way.

Give it a bit more time. They might surprise us. They probably won't, but three weeks in we can't be deciding it's all rubbish before we've given them any actual chance.

I would expect given knowing OBR info and stating no tax on working people those should be met

We’ll see re statements and budget if they do

It's not wishful thinking, it's what I would do.

I am fully aware that I think and behave differently to the majority, but I also know that we never know the full picture.

I think the concept of being a "net contributor" has been misunderstood.
The amount of money it costs to provide public services to one person and their children is pretty high.
The income tax on £40k doesn't even cover a year of education for a child, but I suppose eventually £40kpa is enough to even out, less than this isn't.

I will never have been a net contributor, I'm medically complex and have cost the NHS probably hundreds of thousands over my life.

Do you think that a) they put every single plan they have in their manifesto, and b) they know the exact things the other side has done before they get their hands on it?

That's not how politics works. Not a single party is 100% transparent on anything.

And you've just ignored the fact I gave other options and suggested they may be looking at numerous things.

I work in improvement. I wouldn't take over any project and immediately change things, regardless of what I thought I knew about it. I would do all my own investigations and research and then make decisions. And I would tell my stakeholders the options and recommendations once I knew exactly what they were.

They have to say something. And what everyone knows is that the state of the country's finances is dire.

They're managing expectations. We aren't increasing funding on things right now because there's no money.

That doesn't mean that in a few months they won't find a way to get more money. Or that they won't change allocations of things. Or put rule around how allocations can be utilised. Or any number of other things.

We need big change. That can't and won't happen instantly. And any decent change should happen after those implementing it take their time finding and assessing the options.

Look at Truss. She announced huge, sweeping changes and everything collapsed. Do you want the same to happen again?

Labour aren't increasing taxes on working people.

They've repeatedly said this, so i'm not sure why pp's keep going on about something that isn't going to happen.

Maybe a better question is why the "party of fiscal responsibility" cut NI causing this deficit?